


You Can't be Serious

by xxx_mlggamer_xxx



Category: Descendants (2015)
Genre: Carlos had a Hard-Knock Life, Gen, Mal doesn't get it, based on the new trailer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-27 01:24:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10798821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxx_mlggamer_xxx/pseuds/xxx_mlggamer_xxx
Summary: “Don’t you ever miss screaming at people and, just, making them run away from you?”“Not really?”When Mal is feeling the pressure of being Good, she goes to Carlos for support.Not the best idea she's had.





	You Can't be Serious

 

“Don’t you ever miss screaming at people and, just, making them run away from you?”

“Not really?”

Mal tried not to look deflated by Carlos’ response, but apparently, she failed pretty badly because Carlos reacted almost immediately. His face morphed to a serious, stony expression that she hadn’t seen since the coronation as he set his laptop aside and turned to fully look at her.

“Wait, are you _serious_?” His voice was incredulous, his eyes widening at Mal’s lack of reaction. “Holy _crap_. You can’t actually be _serious_!”

The last time Mal had heard that tone from Carlos he had been telling off Cruella, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Honestly, she was taken aback that he even had it in him to use such a harsh tone (on _her_ of all people).

But there he was, gripping the sides of his chair so hard his knuckles went white, levelling her with the very glare that had earned him the description of “callous” in another life. And there Mal was, wondering what had him so worked up.

“Carlos, you have to admit that life was pretty great on the Isle,” Carlos’ expression turned even more unimpressed (and maybe a little more shocked), but Mal was sure she was right about this. Of course she was. “I mean, people didn’t care about all this prissy princess crap! People ran in terror at the mention of our names! You have to admit, we had it pretty nice on the island.”

In her monologue, Mal had spread her arms and spun around, as if the room itself, with its floral curtains and fluffy bedspreads were evidence enough of her argument (and in a way it was). What could she say? She got her dramatic flair from her mother.

“But in Auradon, it’s all ‘posture’, and ‘manners’, and these stupid boring people and my stupid _blonde hair!_ Here it’s all about _being good,”_ Her voice turned nasal and mocking. “But, Carlos, being _good_ is so…” _Hard? Straining?_  “ _worthless_. Carlos, we were more than good. We were _great._ We were _rotten._ ”

There was a pointed silence that irked Mal. It was the kind of silence that made it clear that Carlos wasn’t going to participate in the call and response the same way he did the Auradon cheers. The same way he used to do on the Isle, and in the first few months in this Evil-forsaken place. Instead, there was a quiet, deadly:

“You really _are_ an idiot, aren’t you?”

Mal whipped around, a remark about how that _isn’t funny_ on the tip of her tongue when she met Carlos’ glare and it died in her throat. The younger boy (who was no longer nearly as small as he once was because, hey, turns out a healthy diet really _does_ contribute to human growth!) was looking at her as if she had just suggested that Dude would make a great lining for her crown.

She had never lost a staring contest with Carlos before – he had been skittish and broken when they had first met, and ever since he had known where he stood in the group in terms of authority. Mal could still very vividly remember a time when he would flinch away from her for even glancing his way. But now, Mal couldn’t help but cringe away from Carlos’ hard glare, and even Dude (because dogs must have some sort of sixth sense about these kinds of things – there was no way a dog knew Carlos better than Mal herself) made his escape out the door’s recently installed doggy-door.

“ _Do I want to go back?!?”_ Mal flinched as Carlos’ voice rose into a shout with no warning. He stood suddenly, giving Mal an unfortunate reminder that he was taller than her now. In total Isle-fashion, Carlos was threatening her with his physical advantage – one he had never had in his arsenal before coming here.

“How _dare_ you, Mal?! I know that life was all _sunshine_ and _poison apples_ for you back when you were _Mommy’s Little Hellspawn,_ ” He spat the words. Mal wasn’t used to this. The old Carlos would always get quiet, and scary. She had heard him raise his voice only twice. “But, can I let you in on something? ‘ _Hell Hall_ is a _massive_ understatement.”  
  “Wha-“  
 “And I know how much you just _loved_ having everyone bend to your every will, but let me tell you from personal experience, it’s not too much fun the other way around. While you and your _mother_ were plotting how you would torture all the ‘good guys’? My _mother_ ” he kept saying that word – _mother_ – like it was a curse, the real dangerous kind that left a bitter taste on our tongue and a hole in your heart. “was just plotting how she would torture _me_.”  
  “Car-“  
 “And I’m _sorry_ ,” His tone implied that he was anything _but_ , “That it’s just _so_ hard for you sit straight and smile every once in a while and hang out with your boyfriend all day. And I’m sorry that you had to go and bleach your hair to…” Carlos took a break from being angry to sound genuinely confused, as if there was no way he could follow her logic on this one. _Boys_. “Fit in, I guess? But if you think for a _second_ that all that is somehow worse than living on the Isle, where we eat _literal trash_ and think it’s food, and we don’t have any friends, and our own _parents_ treat us like…” His voice broke.

“ _Dogs_. And not the loved, pampered kind of dogs like Dude –  but like ninety-nine neglected and stolen Dalmatian puppies she plans on turning into a _coat_.”  
            He was shaking with enough force it was frankly a miracle that he was still balanced. His eyes sparkled dangerously at her.

Mal was at a loss for words. Which was fine because Carlos was not even remotely finished. But when he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper.

“Man, I know I couldn’t trust anyone on that Isle. But… You’ve seen my scars.”

She had. Infected scratches down his back and across his face. Haphazard arrays of small, circular burns that peppered his body like his freckles. Long, white lines, remains of what had once been bleeding open wounds.

“I know we weren’t really friends until we came to Auradon,” that would have hurt if it wasn’t true. They hadn’t known was friendship even _was_ until Auradon. “But c’mon Mal, ‘ _Do you ever miss the old days?’_ You’re asking _me?!?”_ His voice was shaking, as were his hands, outstretched in question.

Mal could count on one hand the amount of times she had ever felt guilt, and, unsurprisingly, they had all happened in Auradon. But In that moment, all those horrible feelings came roaring back, ten times stronger.

She was going to be sick.

“I’m sorry if you ‘miss home’, or whatever, but asking _me_ , of all people, if I want to go back? Mal, I don’t care if you want to be evil, but, news flash, I. _Never. Want. That.”_

Through her crippling guilt, Mal found it within herself to be shocked. Her voice was faint, and her eyes downcast. “But –“

“You, and Jay, and Evie, and _all_ the kids on the Isle and in Auradon have a _choice_. You. _Chose. Good_. Our parents _chose_ evil.” His voice dropped low again, but now it was more broken than hard.

“C’, Your mom…”  
            “Went nuts.” He didn’t step away when Mal raised a hand to place on his shoulder, but his glare alone stopped her in her tracks. “And, bonus, that kind of mental illness is probably genetic. Cruella wasn’t always crazy – Anita’s got the proof for that.”

Mal remembered the pictures that were currently sitting in a folder hidden away in one of Carlos’ desk drawers. They told the story of a young, brilliant, and promising Cruella de Vil. The Cruella that Anita ways saw when she looked at Carlos (although she would never say it to his face for fear of the unintended implications). Mal _knew_ that sanity was a dark cloud that constantly hung over Carlos’ brilliant mind. How could she have forgotten that?  
           

_“Sometimes I can hear her voice in my head.” Carlos had admitted one dark night, “Does that make me crazy?”  
“No.” But they had answered a bit too quickly, hadn’t they?_

 

“So you come to _me_ and tell me that you’re going to waste your choice by choosing what you know from experience to be destructive and unfulfilling. And Why? Because you can’t handle a couple of _‘prissy princesses’_ and you’re too much of a coward to try to change the system even though everyone already adores you? And you not only tell me _that_ , but then you think for _one second_ that I would give up not just a wonderful fresh start, but a safe home, the chance to make some good in the world before I go bonkers, and _loving parents_ just to follow your lead?”  
 His gaze was hard, direct, and absolutely terrifying. Mal had never been _afraid_ of Carlos before, and she didn’t like it. At all.

She wanted to tell him that he wasn’t going to go crazy. That he was right. That he just didn’t understand how she felt. She wanted to tell him _anything_ , but, for the first time in her life, words failed her.

“I always knew you weren’t the brightest in the bunch,” that stung. “But I never thought you were _weak_.” That was even worse. He was spitting at her and she physically recoiled at the sharpness of what he was saying. Carlos had never been one to waste his words, and this was no exception. Even as tears streamed down his face, Mal felt that unwelcome pressure behind her own, as well.

He paused, taking in her face, her body language.

“look, Mal.” Now his voice was softer, his eyebrows pinched. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand – and I can’t help you or relate to you. I just can’t believe you thought I would. I thought you knew me better than that. I thought you _respected_ me more than that.”

It wasn’t an apology, but, in Carlos’ current state of mind, it was close as he was going to get. A simple recognition of differing perspectives. But to Mal, it was just as condemning as everything that came before it.

And there it was again. That pressing, horrific silence as the two breathed their emotions heavily, ( _In. Out_.) Staring at each other – Carlos’ narrow glare meeting Mal’s wide-eyed gape.

It would have dragged on forever, Mal surmised, had Carlos’ watch not gone off. Mal never felt more startled – more like a child – than when Carlos’ stupid, too-expensive watch beeped at her.

And only then did Carlos break eye contact, bending to pick up his things before brushing past Mall without another glance.

“Tourney Game,” his tone was callous and dismissive. “Come or don’t.”

The door didn’t slam behind Carlos, but it didn’t have to.

Mal stood there, alone in the room, for a while. Light filtered in through the open windows. It was soft, and fluffy, and floral, and _safe_. The chatter of students wandering the campus below and the chirping of birds flying overhead filled the silence – contented.

She wiped her eyes with a soft sleeve, straightened her back and her blonde hair, and followed Carlos to the Tourney Field.

 


End file.
